The Beaumont Women
A Super Short Story by Chad Schomber
By the time Camille reached the gate, she was barefoot, soaked through, and carrying a champagne bottle she didn’t remember taking from the house.
The mud sucked at her feet.
She rattled the chain wrapped through the iron bars.
Locked.
The ranch stretched into darkness on both sides. Miles of pasture. Fences. Water tanks. Nothing she could reach before dawn.
Behind her, the Beaumont house glowed on the hill.
Music drifted through the rain.
The engagement party was still going.
She laughed. A sharp, ugly sound.
An hour earlier, she’d been standing beneath a chandelier while a string quartet played and people she’d never met congratulated her on her future.
Now she was wondering whether the man she loved had helped bury his wife. Ex-wife. Dead ex-wife.
Headlights appeared near the stables.
Camille went still.
The truck rolled toward her slowly.
Rhett, she thought.
He stopped several yards away but didn’t get out immediately. Rain hammered the windshield.
Finally the door opened.
He stepped into the storm.
“Camille.”
She didn’t answer.
He looked exhausted. And maybe scared. As though something he’d spent years holding upright is collapsing.
“You shouldn’t be out here.”
She stared at him.
The absurdity of that almost made her smile.
“You locked the gate, Rhett.”
Rhett glanced toward it.
“Mother did.”
That sounded true. Which was part of the problem.
Camille looked past him toward the house.
Earlier that evening, Evelyn Beaumont had greeted her on the terrace with a kiss on both cheeks and a hand resting lightly against her arm.
My dear, she’d said. You’re lovelier than your photographs.
Camille had assumed it was a figure of speech. By dinner she understood it wasn’t.
Evelyn knew where she went to college. Which neighborhood her mother lived in. What wine she ordered on first dates. The woman collected information the way other women of her ilk collected jewelry or husbands.
At dinner, Camille’s high heel had caught in a crack between stones outside the dining room.
She hadn’t thought much about it until Evelyn presented her with a new pair. The right size, even the same color. Of course it was.
“I guessed,” Evelyn had said.
No one at the table had looked up.
Rain ran down Rhett’s face.
“Come back to the house.”
Camille laughed again.
“Why?”
His jaw tightened.
“I can explain.”
“Can you?”
He didn’t answer.
Somewhere behind him, a horse screamed.
The sound dragged her back to the stable.
Back to the moment everything changed.
The storm had already started by then.
Rain on the metal roof.
The smell of hay.
Champagne in dusty glasses.
She and Rhett alone in the loft above the stalls.
The closest she’d ever come to believing she was safe.
She remembered asking about Lila.The name kept surfacing around the ranch that evening.
Rhett had gone quiet.
“Did you love her?” she’d asked.
He’d looked toward the rain.
“I tried to.”
At the time she’d thought it was a cruel answer.
Now she wasn’t sure.
Maybe it had been an honest one.
Maybe honesty was what made it cruel.
Below them a horse had crashed against a stall door.
Rhett moved first.
Camille followed.
Neither of them expected to hear Evelyn’s voice.
“You cleaned it up once.”
Silence for a beat.
“You can clean this up too.”
Camille never heard the ranch hand’s response.
Only the certainty that spread through her body before she understood why.
Rhett had stopped walking.
The memory made her stomach twist.
At the gate, she looked at him.
“You knew.”
Rain hissed against the gravel.
“Yes.”
Camille closed her eyes.
When she’d first met Rhett in Houston, he’d seemed almost impossibly steady. Reserved. Quiet. Looking back, she realized he’d always carried something heavy.
She’d simply mistaken silence for strength.
“What happened?” she asked.
Rhett looked toward the distant house.
For a long moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer.
Then he said, “Lila found something.”
The words vanished briefly beneath the rain.
“Mother told me she’d misunderstood.”
“And you believed her?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
A muscle moved in his jaw.
“I wanted to.”
Camille looked away.
That, she thought, was probably closer to the truth.
He wanted to. The same way people want storms to pass, children want monsters not to exist.
The lights of the house flickered in the distance.
She imagined Evelyn standing at one of those windows.
Watching.
Calculating.
Waiting.
“What did your mother do?”
Rhett’s expression changed.
Not much. Enough.
The grief underneath finally becoming visible.
“They argued.”
Camille said nothing.
“They were near the stable stairs.”
Still nothing.
“When I got there...”
He stopped.
She didn’t need details.
The rain softened.
For the first time all night, neither of them spoke.
Finally Rhett reached into his pocket.
“I called them.”
Camille stared at him.
“The state police.”
He held up his phone.
“I recorded her.”
Camille stared at him.
“Tonight?”
He nodded.
The look on his face was filled with relief. A sort of redemptive courage maybe.
The surrender of a man who had run out of places to hide.
“You think that changes anything?”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
Behind them, far up the hill, blue lights appeared beyond the house. Then more.
Neither of them moved.
The sirens were still distant.
Camille looked down.
One red heel was gone. Without realizing it, she must’ve dropped it in her failed escape.
Rhett watched.
Neither of them mentioned the ring. Or the wedding. Or love.
Some things were too damaged to survive being discussed.
Moments later, police cars lined the drive. Guests stood in clusters beneath blankets and umbrellas.
The Beaumont ranch looked smaller now. Less impressive.
Camille sat on the back step of an ambulance while a medic wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
Across the yard, Rhett stood alone near the stable.
For a moment he looked toward her.
She looked back.
Then a detective approached him and the moment ended.
Camille turned away.
When she finally left the ranch, one red heel remained somewhere in the mud between the gate and the house.
She kept the ring.
This has been another Super Short Story where Substackers give me three random words and I write their story.
Thanks to Heather Clark for providing the words: ranch in Texas, champagne, high heels. Be sure to give her a follow.
Very intriguing. Evelyn’s character reminding me of Beth in Yellowstone. You could write screenplays.